New volunteers recently started at Project Ability. Let us introduce you to one of them, the lovely Emily Ilet.

‘I have been volunteering with Project Ability for a few weeks now and it has been the most fantastic and inspiring experience. Every Saturday after the classes I leave with a renewed feeling of the excitement and possibilities of art and natural human interaction. The way in which the children interact with each other and the staff is wonderfully honest and open, as is their interaction and engagement with the art materials and themes explored in class. It is bewildering to see and experience the range and extent of creative production in just an hour’s class, and the sense of community and collective enthusiasm in the room is amazing. Project Ability offers a space in which the children can build confidence and express their ideas through creative activity in this warm and equal environment, and as an organisation it is inspiring in itself. Building relationships with the children has been wonderfully rewarding, and the energy in the room early on a Saturday morning is astonishing.

Since graduating in Sculpture & Environmental Art from The Glasgow School of Art in 2011 I have been involved with The Pipe Factory, an artist-led studio and exhibition space in the East End of Glasgow. As part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2012 I co-curated Ok-yuh-pahy, a two-day performance event situated across three floors of The Pipe Factory, which was one of many events organised by The Pipe Factory as part of Least Event which lasted the length of the festival. I also volunteered with The Travelling Gallery in 2012, an experience which made me want to work more with children in an artistic environment as the curiousity, questioning and forthright opinion with which the students responded to each exhibition was refreshingly uninhibited.

My artistic practice is often situated in the public realm and I am intrigued by the ways in which people encounter a work and respond to it. I work with performative gesture, drawing and writing, exploring in an absurd and poetic way attempts to engage, communicate with, and disappear into nature. I have really enjoyed volunteering at the Saturday Create classes and this has encouraged me to pursue work in art education/workshops with other organisations in the future.’